We work exclusively with a small, family-owned company in Mirpur, in Pakistani Kashmir at the foothills of the Himalayas. The owner of this factory,Tariq, is a very knowledgeable and experienced man in the salt industry and cares not only about the quality of salt that he puts out but also for his factory and employees.

Tariq's factory also provides exclusively to a top company in Europe as well as a very well-known and well-trusted fair trade certified company in the US. This was not an easy connection to come by, and we feel fotunate to now be teaming up with Tariq. Our customers can rest assured that the salt we provide is truly fair trade as well as the highest quality that you can find coming out of Pakistan today.

We are impressed that Tariq is very prompt, conscientious, accurate and timely in his order filling. Tariq also takes genuine care of his employees. As a show of this a while back one of his foremen died in a traffic accident, off-duty, and ever since Tariq has continued to pay his salary to the widow.

In addition, he has state of the art crushing equipment that he imported from the US and features food grade conveyor belt and stainless steel crushing surfaces. After mining the large salt crystal chunks they are then washed and sun dried before being crushed into various sizes.

There are two types of salt mines in the salt range: the “donkey” mine and the larger mines. The donkey mines are so small that no motorized equipment can be brought in, so the salt is carried out by the miners themselves or by donkeys. We are happy to report that this is the only kind of edible salt that we provide to our customers.

Tariq charges a higher price for his salt due to this rare and very high quality. Since he is so fair in the way he does business and treats his workers we are happy to pay this higher price to help him be able to continue to operate his very unique factory.

Star Crystal Salt is very proud to be working with Tariq and his salt factory in Pakistan. We believe in the principles of sustainability and fair trade and want to encourage people around the world to support this way of doing business. We believe it can quickly change the world and how people around the globe operate their businesses.What Is The Impact of Salt Mining on Nature?

We occasionally get this question from our customers and what we can say is that we know of no major impact of any real worry. The mines in the region are the oldest mines in the world and some for thousands of years. As a side note, the mines were originally discovered by Alexander the Great’s army (a horse that was licking stones to be exact) in 320BC. It was then added as a commodity on the Silk Road where it was traded for it's weight in gold. Notably European royalty desired this salt greatly and it became known as "King's Salt".

The process of mining, sorting and crushing the salt uses no chemicals (it's hand work, mostly). The salt reserves in the Himalayas are massive, and at the current rate would take over 500 years to even make a dent.